The move, part I

Folks,

Well, as expected it's been a very eventful week.

The pic of the week shows myself and my pal Julia, from Birmingham,UK, on our pub crawl night out to mark the end of the semester. Julia is also a teacher at Intercultura.

Finishing in Intercultura
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Well, after two years and two months I finished in Intercultura last week. The final Wednesday weekly meeting fell on my birthday, so there was a bit of a celebration for that. It was surprising when saying goodbye to the students that some seemed genuinely upset. And often students I didn't expect.

Celebrations
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I could really have done with a week between finishing the end of the semester and moving out of the apartment. But that's not the way the calendar fell. So I ended up going out on Wednesday for my birthday, and then the pub crawl for the end of the semester was Thursday. On Wednesday night my class and Leah's went together to a karaoke bar. We must have been drunk, because myself and Leah sang 'California Dreamin'. Myself and three Colombian students continued to a late bar. I thought I'd learnt that lesson already: Never keep up the pace with Colombians.

Thursday was the pub crawl. We hired a bus, and went into the university area of San José. we ended the night in El Pueblo, the 'bar compound' which some of you may remember from before.

Packing the apartment
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With Wednesday and Thursday nights I didn't get a lot done on Thursday or Friday for the move. It meant I had a very busy Saturday. I couldn't believe how much stuff I had. I threw out bags of stuff. I donated a load of clothes to the Red Cross for the flood relief. I posted stuff back to Ireland that cost €60 in postage. I sold stuff to other teachers. I gave stuff away. And still when it came to loading the car I thought there wasn't enough room for what was left. It would have been different if I wasn't moving to another apartment, but I guess I held onto anything I thought might be useful in Mal País.

Journey
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I had rented a car online from Budget. Budget have a place in Mal País, so it would have saved me having to drive back to San José. However, when I called them on Saturday morning they had no record of my booking, despite the fact that I had a confirmation number and an email from them. But they had no cars for the weekend. So I had to go for another hire company, which meant driving back on Tuesday to drop the car back.

The journey was fine, I arrived just in time for a ferry crossing, and I enjoyed the drive.

Mal País
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I arrived in Mal País shortly after 3pm, and drove straight out to the cabina. As soon as I got in I was nearly attacked by Laura's very vocal dog. She had told me before he was harmless, but I'm not much good when he comes running at me barking and growling. So I was paralysed with fear for about 5 minutes. I started talking to him then, and was able to move around a bit. Laura wasn't there, but another girl, cleaning a cabina, told me she was due back shortly. That's tico for I have absolutely no idea when she'll be back.

I decided to start moving my stuff into the house. When I got up there I was completely taken aback. It was a disaster. Nothing had been done. The living room as bare apart from a high table which looked like something homemade you would use to mix paint when you're redecorating. But there was definitely no sign of redecoration. In the bedroom there was a bed with a dodgy mattress on it, and an even dodgier one leaning against it. There was no more furniture. Her mail said a futon, several tables. But there was nothing. I tried turning on the light, there was no electricity. At least when the artist guy had all his stuff there I could excuse the place as looking terrible because of his clutter. But this time there was no excues. It was terrible.

I went back to the car to continue to wait for Laura. I stood on a nest of stinging ants who were soon swarming over my foot. It just wasn't my day.

I decided to go off to find an internet place to get the number of my plan B, the guy whose family had a cabina. After I got the number, I bought a phone card and found a phone. But there was no reply. I waited about half an hour, and phoned again. Then I drove back to Laura's. There was nobody there.

I was beginning to panic. Here I was with all my possessions in a car. It was getting dark. I had no place to stay. I realised that I'd have to get a cabina for a couple of nights while I found someplace else. I needed someplace I could unload all my stuff into the car. When I arrived back to the car there was a big turd sliding down the drivers door window. I looked up, and there was a monkey up in the tree looking directly at me. He had a look as if to say, yes, I know what kind of day you're having, and I'm not going to make it any better.

To be continued...


Chao,

Éamon

Today's Headline in La Nación: MEP auditor criticises 'illogical' payments to seniors